Description

The island of La Palma adopted a flag on 2 January 1991. It is blue and white and in the shield is the figure of the local saint, San Miguel de la Palma (Saint Michael) with a golden balance and golden palm. In the border are five flowers (violets) in purple that symbolize the five municipalities of the island.

Jaume Ollé, 02 Nov 1996

The La Palma flag with coat of arms is vertically divided into blue and white with the coat of arms in its centre: in a blue field above blue and silvery (white) waves a golden (yellow) masoned and embattled tower. Above the pinnacles is a bust of St. Michael, nimbed golden (yellow), dressed in silver (white) armour with a red skirt in Roman legionnaire style. He is holding golden scales in his right hand. Upon the sinister side a golden (yellow) palm tree seems to grow straight out of the waves. The shield has a golden (yellow) bordure superimposed by five purple violet blossoms. The shield is topped by a crown. The coat of arms was finally adopted per decree of the Ministerio de la Gobernación from 10 October 1975.

The coat of arms is properly based on the one which appeared upon the so called „standard of the conquest” ("Pendón de la Conquista”) which was granted to the island council either by the Catholic Kings or their daughter Juana la Loca between 1536 and 1556. In order to distinguish it from the coat of arms of the capital the blossoms, an endemic species, had been added to the bordure later. The flag was adopted on 26 November 1990 by order of the Consejería de Presidencia, published in BOC of 2 January 1991.

Flag Variant

image by António Martins

I reGIFfed this image from the one in José Manuel Erbez's site. I have no idea how this flag compares with the one at the top, except that maybe this Palma flag is a coat-of-arms-less variation. Same about the unusual shades – I just kept the original's and I do not know whether it is a good approximations of the actual and/or official color used or just the author's defaults.